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Nordic Nation: The Recovery Episode with Tad Elliott
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Nordic Nation: The Recovery Episode with Tad Elliott

Jason AlbertNovember 2, 2018

Back in January 2016, Tad Elliott emerged back onto the national championship scene with a win in the men’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start at U.S. Nationals in Houghton, Mich. It had been some time since the skier originally from Durango, Colorado had felt unleashed from the grips of the energy-sapping Epstein-Barr virus. Elliott went on to make the 2017 Nordic Ski World Championship team in Lahti, Finland. There, it was hard to miss his stunning...

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Nordic Nation: Andy Newell in Transition
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Nordic Nation: Andy Newell in Transition

Jason AlbertOctober 19, 2018

FasterSkier caught up with former, yes former U.S. Ski Team member Andy Newell on October, 8 in Park City, Utah. Newell was in Utah assisting with the latest NEG camp and training with his old cohort when time permitted. No longer a staple of the national team, the 34-year-old Newell has partially turned over a new leaf. He’s still training as a professional skier, but he’s also the owner of a cross-country skiing business called Nordic...

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Nordic Nation: Sylvan Ellefson Gives Back, The ‘Mountain Child’ Episode
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Nordic Nation: Sylvan Ellefson Gives Back, The ‘Mountain Child’ Episode

Jason AlbertOctober 4, 2018

From 2011 to 2014, Sylvan Ellefson, based out of Edwards, Colorado, was on a roar. SuperTour wins, World Cup starts, and a 30-kilometer skate national championship in 2014. Now, at 31 years old, it seems the skier who began his ascent in the sport during high school would rather focus on being a husband, father, brother, and coach rather than draw attention to himself. Based as a business person in Colorado’s Vail Valley, Ellefson is giving back...

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Nordic Nation: All Criteria Considered with Grover and Kaeding
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Nordic Nation: All Criteria Considered with Grover and Kaeding

Jason AlbertSeptember 27, 2018

In late August, U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover broke his own news, releasing three new sets of criteria on behalf of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, the national governing body for cross-country skiing. The three separate documents discussed by Grover and linked in his blog disclosed the selection criteria for World Cup and World Cup Period 1 team selection,  2019 World Ski Championships (WSC) in Seefeld, Austria, and the 2019/2020 national team. Grover...

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Nordic Nation: The Patrick O’Brien (Patty O’) Epsiode
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Nordic Nation: The Patrick O’Brien (Patty O’) Epsiode

Jason AlbertSeptember 14, 2018

He’s another skier who bleeds maple syrup. Raised in Putney, Vermont. Skied at the Statton Mountain School (SMS), Dartmouth, and post-collegiately with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project — take a breath — and yes, still in Vermont as the SMS T2 Team head coach is Pat O’Brien. Thirty years old this summer, O’Brien has been at the helm of one of the dominant elite level programs in the U.S. since 2014. As he begins his fifth...

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Nordic Nation: The ‘Brains of the Operation’ Episode with Øyvind Sandbakk

Jason AlbertAugust 6, 2018

Øyvind Sandbakk. If you are new to his name, he is one of the key reasons Norway has remained ahead of the sport-performance curve in nordic sport. If there’s an interesting question to answer with regards to things like double-poling efficiency, Sandbakk or one his students is on it. Yes, Norway has strength in numbers when it comes to cross-country athletes, but they also have a Sandbakk and a cadre of graduate students who keep...

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Nordic Nation: The ‘Take a Bow’ (50th!) Episode with Marit Bjørgen
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Nordic Nation: The ‘Take a Bow’ (50th!) Episode with Marit Bjørgen

Jason AlbertJuly 16, 2018

And she won that in un-Bjørgen like style by coming from behind to reel in a speedy Jessie Diggins. This brings us to the point that this is the 50th episode of Nordic Nation. So, we wanted to go big. Really, no one is bigger than Bjørgen in the sport. In this ‘Take a Bow’ episode with Marit, we cover motherhood, training, racing, the media, and growing up in a small Norwegian club with three racers. The...

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Nordic Nation: The von Ballcap Episode
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Nordic Nation: The von Ballcap Episode

Jason AlbertJuly 9, 2018

von Ballcap episode, we sit down with newly retired pro-skier Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess in his hometown of Bend. At 32, Dakota, or “Dak” as he’s most often called, had been on the scene for over a decade. In that time, Blackhorse-von Jess won the support of his peers and fans as a skier’s skier. The man is nothing but energy and intellect wound into a 5-foot-9-inch body that ultimately became a sprinting force. His story...

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Nordic Nation: The Standing Ovation Episode with Alison Owen-Bradley
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Nordic Nation: The Standing Ovation Episode with Alison Owen-Bradley

Jason AlbertJune 13, 2018

Alison Owen-Bradley was once the American skier to chase to the top of the podium in North America and on the highest tier of international cross-country ski racing. Long before Kikkan Randall, Jessie Diggins, Sophie Caldwell, and Sadie Bjornsen attracted a wave of attention to high-performance skiing with regular World Cup podiums and ultimately an Olympic gold, Owen-Bradley made the U.S. women’s nordic team relevant when considering podium and medal potential. (You may also remember her...

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Nordic Nation: Way, Way North with APU’s Tyler Kornfield
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Nordic Nation: Way, Way North with APU’s Tyler Kornfield

Jason AlbertMay 15, 2018

Skiku. Kornfield is not alone in this endeavor: many skiers and coaches have volunteered their time to “to foster the health and recreational benefits of skiing, biathlon and running through sustainable programs across Alaska”. We spoke to Kornfield on May 3 to learn more about his commitment to Skiku and get the rundown on his year. (To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.)

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Nordic Nation: Two Words … Jessie Diggins
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Nordic Nation: Two Words … Jessie Diggins

Jason AlbertApril 30, 2018

Olympic gold medalist, her time and attention have been in high demand. Just a few of those commitments have involved the following: an appearance at the Minnesota State Capitol where she advocated for a Minneapolis World Champs. And just last Wednesday, April 25, Diggins was in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Protect Our Winters (POW), lobbying members of Congress about the effects of climate change on winter snow sports. Reflecting on...

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Nordic Nation: Author Peggy Shinn on the U.S. Women’s XC Ski Team
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Nordic Nation: Author Peggy Shinn on the U.S. Women’s XC Ski Team

Jason AlbertMarch 23, 2018

Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall won gold in the team sprint. Shinn’s book and what insights she gleaned during the writing process are our primary topics of discussion. From the roots of the women’s team when coaches Marty Hall and John Caldwell pulled the strings, to the modern World Cup where the U.S. women’s team has become a force, Shinn gives us a glimpse of how the women’s program went from deep grassroots to a...

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Nordic Nation: U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s Tom ‘TK’ Kelly in the House (Part 1)

Jason AlbertFebruary 27, 2018

Madshus USA, Boulder Nordic Sport, and Swix Sport US for their generous support, which made this coverage possible. PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — At the Olympics in PyeongChang, FasterSkier sat down with U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s longtime Vice President of Communications Tom Kelly. After starting with the organization back in 1986, Kelly will be stepping down a few months after the Olympics. Kelly, 65, is the nerve center to U.S. Ski Team’s media and communications outreach. Shepherding athletes through...

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Nordic Nation: U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s ‘TK’ in the House (Part 2)
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Nordic Nation: U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s ‘TK’ in the House (Part 2)

Jason AlbertFebruary 27, 2018

Madshus USA, Boulder Nordic Sport, and Swix Sport US for their generous support, which made this coverage possible. PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — In this episode recorded at the Olympics, you’ll hear Part 2 of our conversation with one of the busiest people at the Games … Tom Kelly. Kelly is U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s longtime vice president of communications. After starting with the organization back in 1986, he will be stepping down a few months after the Olympics....

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Nordic Nation: Olympic Champ Kikkan Randall Elected to IOC Athletes’ Commission

Jason AlbertFebruary 23, 2018

Madshus USA, Boulder Nordic Sport, and Swix Sport US for their generous support, which made this coverage possible. PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — In this episode of Nordic Nation, FasterSkier sat down with U.S. cross-country skier, Kikkan Randall — known by some as Kikkanimal — to discuss her fifth and final Winter Olympics, as well as what lays ahead for the Anchorage, Alaska native.  On Wednesday evening earlier this week, Randall and teammate Jessie Diggins paired up to take...

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